Date: 12 of November 2010

th

Ways of Knowing
Perception
Perception is the awareness of things through our five senses i.e. the sense of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. The five senses are the gates and windows of the mind. They are the channels through which we communicate with the world.
The greatest calamity that can befall people is not that they should be born blind, but rather that they should have eyes and yet fail to see Helen Keller (1880 1968) We get much of our knowledge through sight. It is therefore the most important sense. We are such visually oriented creatures that vision is sometimes identified with knowledge. Therefore, seeing is believing. Sense of smell is a poor relation of the senses and is called the mute sense, as we dont get as much information from it as the others. However, despite this, our sense of smell has a more direct route to our brain than any of the other senses. Empiricism is the knowledge we acquire through the senses. According to the school of philosophy known as Empiricism, all knowledge is ultimately based on perceptual experience. For example, we use sight and hearing in almost all subjects, to listen to the teacher and see the notes written on the board.
Date: 2010-11-16

Perceptual Illusions
According to common sense realism, perception is a passive and relatively straight-forward process which gives us an accurate picture of reality. Perception is a complex process consisting of two distinct elements which are: 1. Sensation 2. Interception For example, when you touch a hot object, you sense the heat, which is relayed to the brain, which intercepts this as pain, and instructs you to pull your hand away. Despite the ease with which we perceive the world, perception is a complex process in which many things take place in our subconscious, as a result, we all suffer from visual illusions, arising from the interpretations of what we see. Context: The way we see things is partly on the context in which we see it. We usually judge the size of an object by looking at the overall context.

Figure and ground: When we look at something, we tend to highlight certain aspects of what we see, and treat other parts of it as background. For example, we see the writings on the board, but we do not concentrate on the white board itself. Visual grouping: We have a natural tendency to look for meaning in what we see and group our perceptual experiences together into shapes and patterns. Expectations: Our expectations influence how we see things. Example, the conserving the last two letters of a word but shuffling the words in between, we can still read the word. We suffer not only from visual illusions, but also from illusions with each of our other senses. Date: 19-11-2010

Selectively of Perceptions
Its not what you look at that matters, its what you see Thoreau (1817 1862) Seeing is more than looking, because seeing includes processing and understanding of the sight. The kind of stimuli that is usually noticed depends on: 1. Intensity: e.g. how much intensity the stimulus is. We dont notice a ticking of a clock until it is heard. 2. Contrast: If there is a white carpet, and a drop of ink on it, we can easily see it, but not on a black carpet. Perception is selective. Our minds would overload if we remembered everything! What we see depends on interest and mood. Our perception can be disrupted by fear. Eye-witness testimony: It can be very unreliable, but we tend to put a lot weight on eye-witness testimony. Research has shown that the eye is not a camera, and visual memories are not photographs that can be universally relied on. Every time we remember something, we reconstruct it and its easy to confuse the source of our memories.
A child is dying in poverty on the side of the road. How would they perceive this: 1. 2. 3. Doctor Economist Childs Father

4.

Social worker

To what extent do you think that the culture you come from affects the way you perceive the world?

In what emotional state do you think you see the world with the greatest clarity and Although perception is an important source of knowledge, we need to treat it with caution, as we objectivity? may:

1. Misinterpret what we see 2. We may fail to notice something 3. We may misremember what we see To distinguish between appearance and reality in everyday life, we need to: 1. See confirmation from other senses, e.g. If something looks an apple, and tastes like an apple, then it seems reasonable to conclude that it is an apple. ------------------Journal---------------------------In our school, there was talk that one student was leaving to another country, and the rumour spread that it was told by the student himself. When he returned to school after the weekend, we found out that he was leaving school, but at the end of the year! The rumour had started from when he had told someone that he was leaving, which was interpreted as though he was leaving immediately. This led me to think about how much our use of perception to gain knowledge is clouded. Some of what we hear and see is misinterpreted leading to confusion and lies. In the end, the knowledge that we get is hardly justified. So, eventually I came to a point of asking myself How much of what I communicate actually gets across in the right sense? and Should I believe everything even from a trusted source? ------------------End of Journal entry---------Date: 2010-11-23

2. If you say something that does not fit in with the general world, then what you say may not be right 3. Independent testimony the evidence of a single eyewitness cannot always be taken at face value, but the credibility of such evidence is greatly increased if it is confirmed by other people. Ultimate reality Does the world exist independent of our perception of it? While our five senses give us valuable information about the world, they each have a limited sense of sensitivity, and capture only certain kinds of data. Our eyes are sensitive only to light of certain wavelength, and we are unable to see certain things like ultraviolet and infrared which lie beyond the visible spectrum. In the same way, our ears can detect only certain kinds of sound, and our noses detect certain smells. Bats navigate via echo-location. They emit high frequency sounds and are able to sense the shape, size and distance of the object by the echo that is reflected back to their ears. If we are evolved so that our eyes were sensitive to light in a different range of wavelengths, our experience of the world would be very different, e.g. if one burns their hand in a fire, is the resulting of pain in the hand or the fire?

If you drink a can of cola, it tastes sweet. Does the sweetness exist in the cola or in your mouth? We can say that pain and taste are merely subjective experiences that results from the interaction between your hand and the fire in the same way the sweetness in the cola is a subjective experience that results from the interaction between your taste buds and the cola. The sky is blue, the snow is white and grass is green, but all these are likened to subjective experiences of reality, then we realize that the green is no more in the grass, and that the green colour that we see in the grass is the result of the interaction between our eyes and the underlying structure of the grass. If our eyes had evolved differently, then maybe we would not see the grass as green at all. We can therefore conclude the world in itself has no colour at all and so reality is colourless. Date: 2010-11-26 If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? If sound is nothing more than the effect of air vibrations on our ears, then if there are no ears in the neighbourhood, then the tree does not make a sound. If a rose flowers and dies in an uninhabited garden, and there is no one to see it, does it have a colour? Colour, sounds and tastes do not exist independent of our experiences of them. -----------------Journal--------------------There was a discussion about the old scientists like Galileo and Copernicus who founded the Heliocentric theory, amongst us. They discovered something that was out of the ordinary i.e. nobody could believe and it did not fit into the general principle, and so the scientists were cast aside, despite being true. The more I thought about it, I reached a point where I was asking What if there are people today who say something that is extraordinary and superficial, and we shun. What if what they say is actually true? A clear example of this is people who talk about the Infinite Potential in Man. They say that once we tap into this potential, we can do miracles anywhere. This truly seems impossible, but who knows? They may be right! ----------------End of Journal------------

Date: 2010-11-30

Theories of Reality
There are three different theories about relationships between perception and reality: 1. Common sense realism This is a common-sense idea that the way we perceive the world mirrors the way the world is. Since what we perceive is determined in fact by the nature. 2. Scientific realism The world exists as an independent reality but it is very independent from the way we perceive it. This replaces the familiar world of everyday experiences with the colourless, soundless, odourless realm of atoms whizzing around in empty space. 3. Phenomenalism Matter is simply the permanent possibility of sensation. It therefore makes no sense to say that the world exists independent of our experience of it. Phenomenalism insists that we can only know the world from our distinctively human perceptive, and so we have no right to pontificate about the nature of ultimate reality. NB: We can either, stick with empiricism and insist that we know nothing about ultimate reality, or reject strict realism and insist that there is a world out there independent of our experience of it. We cannot simply take the evidence of our senses for granted, for not only do they sometimes deceive us, but are also selective, and can be distorted by our beliefs and prejudices. Admittedly, perception cannot give us certainty but knowledge requires something less than certainty. If perceptual evidence is consistent with other ways of knowing, such as reason or intuition, then it is probably a good enough foundation for reliable knowledge. Date: 2010-12-07

Reason
Critical reason is the only alternative to violence so far discovered Karl Pepper (1902-1994) He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that does not reason is a slave William Drummond (1585-1619) All generalisations are false, including this one Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

---------------------Journal----------------------------------------This week, we had a representative from a university who came to our school to inspire students. As she, talked, I noticed that there were not much negative aspects about the university, and one would be easily persuaded to try to get to that university. When I went home, I researched about the university, and found that there were better and cheaper universities than that one, and I realised how much of persuasion involves praising the good qualities of the object in question, but fail to give out the most important points. As I dealt more on the topic, I realised most of what we talk is to persuade people, and so this led me to think of how much conceit must there be when we talk to different people. I believe we must all ask the questions, How true is what I am saying? because, in the end, talking is a two-way mechanism, and you may just as easily be tricking the listener. ---------------------End of Journal Entry-----------------------Date: 2011-01-11 We are constantly using reason to go beyond the immediate evidence of our senses. Logic is the branch of philosophy that explores the way we reason. Reason as a source of knowledge gives us certainty given the assumptions which we call premises, the conclusion can be drawn, and it can be either true or false. Out of reason, we have rationalism which is a school of philosophy which deals with reason as the most important source of knowledge. Rationalists are particularly impressed with areas of knowledge such as logic and maths unlike their empiricist rivals. Logic attempts to: 1. Define correct reasoning Reasoning is full of fallacies. 1. Distinguish good arguments from bad ones 2. Pick out flaws and weaknesses in reasoning 3. It creates rules which enable us to test whether our reasoning is coherent and consistent All IB1s learn TOK. Salim is an IB1. Therefore, Salim learns TOK.

If there are 5 people in a room and 6 leave, then 1 person has to go back in so that the room is empty

Date: 11-01-2011 Types of Reasoning Deductive reasoning

Any kind of reasoning that begins from the general to the particular e.g. all dogs are mammals. Fido is a dog and therefore, Fido is a mammal. This kind of argument is called a syllogism because it consists of: 1. Two premises: a. All dogs are mammals b. Fido is a dog 2. Conclusion: a. Fido is a mammal 3. There are three terms, each of which occurs twice: a. Dog b. Mammal c. Fido 4. There are quantifiers: a. All Syllogisms produce knowledge based on reason rather than experience.

--------------Journal Entry-----------------------In Mathematics, when asked to prove something, we come to a conclusion that one quantity is equal to another. What most of us fail to realise is that this is in fact deductive reasoning, and a mistake in one step results in a mistake in the whole thing. We usually find that some steps are usually worked wrongly, and so we can say that most mathematical proofs can have false judgement in them. An example of this is the following proof that found through this link:

http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/10001.1-8.shtml This proof is perfectly valid, save for one step, as identified in the website. This led me to think about other proofs, like the Helio-centric theory, the fact that the world is round etc., and wonder whether what we know is true or not.

------------------End of Journal Entry-----------

Inductive Reasoning
Since my neighbours dog has been friendly to me in the past, I can be confident that it will not bite me today. Past experiences shape our expectations about the future.

Life would be impossible if we did not assume that most of the regularities that have held in the past would continue to hold in the future. Science too uses inductive reasoning and formulates general laws on the basis of a limited number of observations, e.g. if metals A, B and C expand when heated, then scientists are likely to conclude that all metals expand when heated. Inductive reasoning works best with natural sciences where the information obtained is most certain as opposed to social sciences, where information is uncertain. People tend to remember only evidence that supports their beliefs and forget evidence that go against them. This is called information bias. Since induction goes beyond the immediate evidence of our senses, we cannot always rely on it; we tend to make hasty generalisations and jump to conclusions based on insufficient evidence. Date: 14-01-2011

Informal Reasoning (Fallacies)

1. After this, therefore on account of this If A happens after B, then B is the cause of A e.g. if the murder rate increases in a city following the abolition of capital punishment, then capital punishment must be an effective deterrent. Just because an event A is regularly followed by B, it doesnt necessarily make A the cause of B. 2. Against the man It is a fallacy that consists in attacking or supporting the person rather than the argument. It may also arise when we appeal to what most people believe in, in order to justify an argument. 3. Circular reasoning (Begging the question) This arises when we assume the truth of something that we are supposed to be proving, e.g. Jesus is the son of God, because he said he was, and the son of God cannot lie. 4. Argument ad ignorentiam Something is true on the grounds that there is no evidence to disapprove it. 5. False dilemma This is the fallacy of assuming that only two alternatives exist, when in fact there is a wider range of options, e.g. Do those who advocate for an increase in military expenditure want to see our schools and hospitals close? The world is divided into those who divide things into types (binary thinking) and those who dont. Lifes issues are more of shade of grey then black and white.

--------------------------------Journal Entry-----------------On the grounds of informal reasoning, I hit upon an interesting concept. There were many theories about the origin of the universe, and the one that is most acclaimed is the Big Bang Theory, which states that the universe was formed from a large explosion which is causing it to continue expanding even now. Although it basically agrees with what we notice i.e. that the galaxies are moving farther from us, it doesnt necessarily show that the universe is expanding, because we dont even know if the universe exists! -------------------------------End of Journal Entry----------

Date: 18-01-2011

Emotions
Do you like a subject because you are good at it, or are you good at a subject because you like it? According to James Lange theory, Emotions are largely physical in nature and bodily changes come before and cause emotional changes. If we remove all physical symptoms, then the corresponding emotion would disappear. If we mimic the appropriate physical symptoms, we can generate the corresponding emotion e.g. If we smile, we feel happy. When we talk to someone who is feeling depressed, we unconsciously mimic some of their physical expressions of their mood. The theory ignores the fact that our emotions have a mental as well as a physical aspect. Our emotions are also affected by our beliefs, and this distinguishes human emotions from animals. A change in our beliefs can affect our emotions. Our emotions provide energy for the pursuit of knowledge.

Emotion as an obstacle to knowledge

Emotions are likely to influence the way we see and think about the world. Strong emotions can sometimes distort the three other ways of knowing. Perception There is some truth in sayings like: 1. Love is blind 2. Fear has many eyes Such emotional colouring can make us aware of some aspects of reality to the exclusion of others.